National Annenberg Election Survey

The National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) examines a wide range of political attitudes about candidates, issues and the traits Americans want in a president. It also has a particular emphasis on the effects of media exposure through campaign commercials and news from radio, television and newspapers. Additionally, it measures the effects of other kinds of political communication, from conversations at home and on the job to various efforts by campaigns to influence potential voters.
Joining the NAES team for the 2008 presidential election was Richard Johnston, a political scientist and expert on public opinion and voting. Johnston served as co-director of the National Annenberg Election Survey with Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Diana C. Mutz. In May 2009, Johnston rejoined the faculty of the department of political science at the University of British Columbia.
The NAES concluded another successful presidential campaign cycle with the completion of the final wave of the Internet panel survey on January 31, 2009. The telephone portion of the survey was completed on November 12, 2009 with a post-election panel. In total, NAES completed interviews with 57,967 adults in the United States by telephone prior to Election Day, and 3,737 were interviewed during the post-election telephone panel phase. The online panel survey completed 95,464 interviews across the five waves beginning in October 2007. While the telephone and panel surveys generally consisted of different questions, both surveys measured beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviors relevant to the 2008 presidential campaigns.
On September 16, 2010, the 2008 NAES telephone survey dataset became available on the APPC website. The 2008 online survey dataset became available here on December 8 of 2010.

The proportion of U.S. adults identifying themselves as Independent has grown significantly over the last four presidential elections, rivaling both major parties, according to a national study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center that is being published in Presidential Studies Quarterly.READ MORE

A 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey question on whether the name of the Washington Redskins is offensive to Native Americans is in the news amid renewed national debate over whether the pro football team should change its name.READ MORE

The entire 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) telephone and online components are now available to scholars on this website. Adults in the United States were interviewed by telephone and online about their beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behavior relevant to the 2008 presidential campaigns.READ MORE

Ken Winneg, Managing Director of the National Annenberg Election Survey, co-authored a paper, “The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market,” published in the American Journal of Political Science (April 2010), with lead author Norman H. Nie, Stanford University; Darwin W. Miller, III, RAND Corporation; Saar Golde, Stanford University; and Daniel M. Butler,READ MORE

Many Americans are unable to identify where the major party candidates stand on various issues ranging from abortion to free trade to closing the base at which alleged enemy fighters are held at Guantanamo Bay, according to recent data collected by the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES). Only 30 percent of adultsREAD MORE